28 December 2009

PNG Attitude’s 2009 - April in review

Events

Australia’s
former Governor-General, Major General Michael Jeffery, says that, “without the
Patrol Officers performing their policing, legal, agricultural, governance and
administrative functions, PNG would simply not have been ready for nationhood
in 1975”

On Bougainville the last
of the Mekamui rebel groups agrees to join the peace process. Mekamui commander, Chris Uma, asks the government to accommodate his group in the chiefly system under the Bougainville Constitution

ASOPA graduate, ex chalkie, medical doctor and
veterinarian, Dr Howard Ralph, receives the Sunday
Telegraph nomination for a Pride of Australia medal. He has spent the last
30 years working with injured Australian native wildlife

Quotes

“[I am] totally disappointed and sickened by their work attitudes and inefficiency. Whose interests are the public
servants serving? Are they serving the interest of the public, or their own?” -
Governor-General Sir Paulias Matane

"We demonstrated the power of the .303 rifle by
lining up five shields, making a dum-dum out of a bullet, and showing how it
would come out a great gap on the other side. To these people [the rifles] were
just sticks and had no meaning until we demonstrated their power" - veteran
PNG politician and ex-kiap Sir Barry Holloway, recalling his first trip into an
uncontrolled area

“I have been letting readers know for a month now that
their supply of a monthly medication hitherto known as The Mail is about to dry up. Although there has been a proviso:
should you advise me that you are alive, compos mentis and capable of absorbing
information, said supply will continue” – Keith Jackson, trying to determine
whether a newsletter was still required in the Age of Blog [the response was
overwhelming and PNG Attitude was born]

“Phil Fitzpatrick’s novel, Bamahuta – Leaving Papua, is a beautiful book. Fitzpatrick is not
only a powerful storyteller with a keen eye for the descriptive detail that
makes you feel you're there, he writes with a beguiling sense of humour and the
ability to draw characters who are real (sometimes because they are real) and
who we can sympathise with, even when their personalities are less than
appealing” – Keith Jackson